“At one time Abba Agathon had two disciples each leading the anchoretic life according to his own measure. One day he asked the first, ‘How do you live in the cell?’ He replied, ‘I fast until the evening, then I eat two hard biscuits.’ He said to him, ‘Your way of life is good, not overburdened with too much asceticism.’”

This quotation shows that there were different ways of life, and different philosophies surrounding how much asceticism was beneficial in the thought of the Desert Fathers.